Driver 3 (Driv3r) on the PlayStation 2 – PS2 – Let’s Play

ESCAPE THE POLICE!

Driv3r, more commonly known as Driver 3 (marketed as DRIV3R), is a racing, shooting, and adventure video game. It is the third installment in the popular Driver series and was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Atari. Driv3r was released in North America for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox on June 21, 2004. In Europe, it was officially released on June 25, although due to the way Atari shipped the title across the continent, it made its way into independent UK retailers before the release date, even making a #6 position in the ELSPA chart for that week. On March 15, 2005, it was released on PC for US customers, it was also released on Game Boy Advance October 25, 2005. At one point a Nintendo GameCube version and an N-Gage version were planned, but both were cancelled.

Driv3r brings back features from Driver 2 and adds the ability to ride motorcycles and boats, use weapons, swim, climb ladders, and enter certain buildings among other things, controlling more than one character, as well as entering and exiting cars.

Although two Driver games were published between them, 2011’s Driver: San Francisco is considered the sequel to Driv3r.

Vehicles

The vehicles in Driv3r are modeled after real life vehicles and are designated to behave as such. For example, bullet holes appear when a car is shot, vehicles only take significant damage when the engine is hit (if the car is hit behind, the trunk of the car will pop out and start bouncing when driving), tires can be shot at, leading them to puncture and screech very loud while a vehicle is moving, and individual pieces of the car can be shot out or can fall out after taking damage (eg. if the car doors are opened during driving, and if you hit the doors against an object they will fall apart. If the engine is shot multiple times, smoke will start to burn out of the car. But if Tanner keeps shooting at it, the engine will ignite and the car will explode into small pieces. The car can also explode while Tanner’s inside and driving. Bumping into objects and obstacles that stand in your way will also damage the car and make it explode in which case can Tanner die. Vehicles respond very well to the collisions. The possibility of making the vehicles act however the player wants is because Reflections modelled them piece by piece (rear view mirrors (each mirror separately), car doors (each door separately), tires (each tire separately), car windows (each window separately) etc. and then they’ve combined all those pieces into a single vehicle.

Weapons

Weapons are unnamed in the game. Weapons’ firing range and rate vary depending on their type. When the game starts in Take A Ride mode, Tanner is only equipped with one weapon. Other weapons can be claimed by seizing them from police and armed civilians who have been killed, or from hideouts or safe houses. Pedestrians will flee if they see a gun or have heard a gunshot and even run out of the way if they have almost been run over by vehicles. Weapons vary from pistols to grenade launchers.

The PC version of the game has an extra mission called “The Hit”. The Xbox version allows for custom soundtracks within the game, although the player cannot change the song track.